Will I hire a CTO or Lead developer? This hiring task is the question that most business owners ask before setting a business enterprise. It is good to analyze your business requirements to hire the best personnel. In the end, you need someone who can manage the business and lead the company’s technical department. I mean writing, running codes, and solving technical problems.
Now, how will your job advertisement look? How will you call this person with divergent skills? This paper will help startups in decision-making and aid in hiring the best person.
The role of a CTO
A chief technology officer is responsible for the dissemination of technology and development for external actors. In the case where the company is small, he/she is responsible for internal IT operations. Like all CTOs, a traditional CTO is a crucial figure in driving technological advancement within a business. The role of CTO may be different depending on the nature of business, but all of them have similar duties.
Lead Developer roles
The core role of a developer is to come up with codes irrespective of being lower or upper-level employees. Developers and managers are intertwined and work together to design user interfaces, software maintenance, and data manipulation.
The difference between a junior and senior developer is that the latter can develop an application without external assistance while the former performs routine tasks within the business.
Middle-level managers
Apart from CTO and developers, other senior and junior managers play different roles within the organization. Among them is the team leader, who sometimes can write codes, but the significant function is to manage junior developers.
The other one is the engineering manager, whose considerable role is to lead the entire team of developers, formulate solutions, and work jointly with other departments.
To generalize this discussion, startups refer to their technological leader as a CTO, but their duties differ depending on the organization’s size.
Hiring the wrong technical team
All technical leaders will play the same role, but hiring people with the wrong skills can be costly. Sometimes, startups make mistakes that seem minor, but it becomes a significant problem in the future.
A startup will hire a traditional CTO who possesses excellent managerial skills, and they think it is over. After some time, they realize a need for someone to write code.
Another instance is where a startup hires a traditional CTO with great coding skills but cannot manage and control a group of developers. The CTO becomes reluctant to handle management tasks.
To solve this problem, startups need people who can play hybrid roles. A person who can perform managerial and technical tasks simultaneously.
It is wise to consider the size and extend of the startup before hiring a CTO. For early-stage startups, the size is usually small, of about five people, and there is a need for someone to write codes and perform managerial tasks.
The traditional startup has about twenty-five people, and you will need someone who can lead the technical team and undertake daily routines. In this case, hire an engineering manager who will oversee the future goals of the startup.
For an enterprise with more than 50 employees, there is a need for a traditional CTO with hybrid skills.
In conclusion, hiring the right people with competent skills will lead to the business’s success and vice versa. Never rush to decide between hiring a managerial and technical workforce.
